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In computer science (specifically computational complexity theory), the worst-case complexity measures the resources (e.g. running time, memory) that an algorithm requires given an input of arbitrary size (commonly denoted as n in asymptotic notation). It gives an upper bound on the resources required by the algorithm.
Big O notation is a mathematical notation that describes the limiting behavior of a function when the argument tends towards a particular value or infinity. Big O is a member of a family of notations invented by German mathematicians Paul Bachmann, [1] Edmund Landau, [2] and others, collectively called Bachmann–Landau notation or asymptotic notation.
With respect to computational resources, asymptotic time complexity and asymptotic space complexity are commonly estimated. Other asymptotically estimated behavior include circuit complexity and various measures of parallel computation , such as the number of (parallel) processors.
In mathematical analysis, asymptotic analysis, also known as asymptotics, is a method of describing limiting behavior. As an illustration, suppose that we are interested in the properties of a function f (n) as n becomes very large. If f(n) = n 2 + 3n, then as n becomes very large, the term 3n becomes insignificant compared to n 2.
It is a term commonly encountered in computer science research as a result of widespread use of big-O notation. More formally, an algorithm is asymptotically optimal with respect to a particular resource if the problem has been proven to require Ω(f(n)) of that resource, and the algorithm has been proven to use only O(f(n)).
C# has a static class syntax (not to be confused with static inner classes in Java), which restricts a class to only contain static methods. C# 3.0 introduces extension methods to allow users to statically add a method to a type (e.g., allowing foo.bar() where bar() can be an imported extension method working on the type of foo).
In physics and other fields of science, one frequently comes across problems of an asymptotic nature, such as damping, orbiting, stabilization of a perturbed motion, etc. Their solutions lend themselves to asymptotic analysis ( perturbation theory ), which is widely used in modern applied mathematics , mechanics and physics .
In the theoretical analysis of algorithms, the normal practice is to estimate their complexity in the asymptotic sense. The most commonly used notation to describe resource consumption or "complexity" is Donald Knuth 's Big O notation , representing the complexity of an algorithm as a function of the size of the input n {\textstyle n} .